One year ago we published our original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile of the current U.S. House Representative from Arizona’s 4th District, Paul Gosar, who in his original profile, we noted consistently has one of the worst voting records on issues that impact women, and not just on abortion, because Gosar also voted against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, but also voted against legislation that would allow female victims of sexual assault within our military to decide who determines their case, a military trial or a civilian one. He also not only voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown, but when the time came to reopen the government, he voted to keep it closed. During the standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and Cliven Bundy in 2014, Gosar actually travelled to Nevada to show support for Bundy, stopping to take photos with him, as well. Gosar’s also a conspiracy theorist, having called for the impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder over Benghazi, immigration, Fast & Furious, Guantanamo Bay and “violating criminal smuggling laws”.
So what’s Paul Gosar been up to in the past year since we last shined a light on him? Great question…
- On January 22nd, 2015, an anti-abortion bill, HR 7, was moving through the House, and was halted because even some members of the GOP were put off by the language in the bill regarding its definition of rape. Paul Gosar, however, had no problem with that, and voted for it anyway.
- On February 3rd, 2015, Rep. Gosar votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. This in spite of the fact that the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted.
- On March 3rd, 2015, Paul Gosar votes against funding the Department of Homeland Security as part of a Republican protest of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
- May 13th, 2015, Rep. Gosar co-sponsors and votes for HR 36, a ban on abortion at 20 weeks.
- On September 11th, 2015, Gosar votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 17th, 2015: As the nation excitedly awaits a visit from Pope Francis, who House Speaker John Boehner arranged to have speak before the United States Congress, Paul Gosar announced that he would be boycotting the pontiff’s speech because he refused to listen to the Holy Father’s talk of climate change, instead insisting writing an op-ed where he said he didn’t want to hear “leftist talking points”, and saying that “climate has been changing since “first created in Genesis”. It’s true, Gosar, a Catholic, further put his foot in his mouth on this one:
“If the Pope plans to spend the majority of his time advocating for flawed climate change policies, then I will not attend. When the Pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one. If the Pope wants to devote his life to fighting climate change then he can do so in his personal time. But to promote questionable science as Catholic dogma is ridiculous.”
- On September 18th, 2015, Rep. Gosar co-sponsors and votes with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
- October 23rd, 2015: Gosar votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
- November 19th, 2015: Rep. Gosar votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks. One terrorist had a fake passport of a member of Assad’s army, apparently to create a false trail to help in their escape, or hoping that the attacks would be blamed on Syrian refugees, and the governments of nations like France and the United States would fall for it and not allow refugees to escape ISIS abroad. And… the Congressman fell for it.
Gosar won his third term in office in the 2014 elections with 70% of the vote, but that was before he went and talked smack about a very popular pope. Arizona’s 4th Congressional District has a+20 Republican lean according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, so it’s an uphill climb for any Democrat looking to unseat him in 2016. At this time, no Democrat has filed to run against Paul Gosar. However, he does have a challenger in the primary election for his seat, facing off against Dale Poole, a former schoolteacher and member of the Army’s 82nd Airborne paratroopers.
We at CSGOPOTD going to pull for Poole, simply because the odds are good that he can’t be more of a dumbass than Rep. Gosar, just for how bad he would have to be to surpass him.